Asked to lead... again... but she was not very convincing...
Today, I was asked to be Team Lead for another team.. by my boss.. but it seems I wasn't their first choice...
The story goes....
This morning, I had a breakfast meeting with my Visa lady boss, Sophie. We were discussing my handover of the APAO Team (the 24/7 monitoring team). This team will be passed over to another Visa manager, SK, who once 'owned' the team before it came to my lady boss. She told me that they (she and my HP boss, Allan) have decided to 'promote' Jeff (the Server Ops Team Lead) to be Sophie's assistant, and promote another Server Ops member, Johnson, to be the next Team Lead. When I heard this, I was suprised. They had offered me the position the last time they talked to me about the assistant manager post. So I would have thought that they would at least considered me first before the others. But anyway, I wasn't very interested in that Team Lead position so I didnt comment anything on that to her.
Later in the afternoon, during our team meeting (team as in the Application Support Team, my Main team which I am the assistant Team Lead), my boss told the rest of the team abt the decisions. She asked us if we are okay with Allan (my HP boss) bringing in another HP colleague from the Desktop team to replace Jeffrey in the Server Ops team, and all immediately protested. The current Server Ops team comprises Jeff, Johnson and Hawk. Other than Jeff who is server-trained, both Johnson and Hawk was promoted from the Visa Desktop Team, so they are not properly server-trained per se. If all three of the Server Ops team is going to be NOT server-trained, then the workload will definitely flow to us, overloading the Application Support team, as there are more than 150 different servers (and increasing) to administrate and maintain all over Asia Pacific!!
After the team meeting, one of my OSPS colleague msn me asking me if I want the position of the Server Ops Team Lead, as in his opinion, I will make a better team lead than Johnson. I told him that it's Sophie and Allan's decision to make. Since they did not offer it to me, I will not go to them to ask/beg for it. Anyway, I am happy doing what I'm doing now. But I think he later msn Sophie about this and Sophie msn me. She said she 'forgot' to ask me if I'm interested in being the Team Lead for Server Ops. She thought that the previous time I rejected her assistant position, I also didn't want any 'Lead' role. I told her it's not a problem, I'm okay with her choice of selecting Johnson to take over Jeff. I can concentrate more on my current job scope.
Then we spent the next 40 mins trying to get each other see the other person's point. I told her I'm not server trained, so I won't value-add to the Server Ops team technically. She replied saying that it is not an issue as technical skills can always be picked up and she wants me to straighten up the Server Ops team, just like what I did to the APAO team. She wants me to do both the team lead job and my current job!! I responded that by doing so, she will not be fair to the Server Ops Team as I will not be able to concentrate fully on the team; instead of 1 person fully doing server-related stuff, I can only contribute 0.5 of my time to the Server Ops team. I told her several of my concerns: technical knowledge, seniority, current team moral and culture, resource and fairness. I told her that I need to know her expectation of the Team Lead before committing as I do not want to bite more than I can chew. Finally, she wants us to meet up on Monday to talk this through...
So that was what happened...
Now my thoughts:
When I heard that they are promoting Johnson to be the Team Lead, I was slightly annoyed. Because they (Allan and Sophie) did mention to me that they will promote me if either one of the Team Leads (Jeff and Edmund, who were keen to take up the assistant manager role) gets the job. I'm annoyed because that promise seemed to be made insincerely. 好像是在敷衍我。
Since they did not offer the position to me in the first place, I will not ask them for it. To me if they are sincere about their offer the last time, I shouldn't be the one in the 被动 state. If they really think that I'm suitable for the position, I should have been their first choice. I should have the power to decide, and not being made to look like I sought after the position after they have decided the candidate, which I didn't.
Frankly, with or without this position, I'm happy with my current workload and responsibility. Furthermore, I'm hoping my scholarship application will be successful and I can go for further studies either Q4 this year or Q1 next year. So I'm quite reluctant to take up any new responsibilities. And if the scholarship plan fall through, I've also put out feelers to get myself into a more permanent employment. But again, I am worried about turning my bosses down the 2nd time. What if all my plans did not materialise, then I will not be in the position to ask for more responsibilities or promotion in future, since I've turned down the opportunity twice.
If I were to take this position up, I can foresee that my laissez-faire approach to work will have to change and my after-office hours might not be mine anymore. I might face problem managing the 2 Server Ops guys and getting them to 服我. It'll take me a lot more effort to change the current culture and attitude of the Server Ops team. My Visa lady boss will have high expectation of me to perform, since I've delivered the goods once. My learning curve will be very steep and my workload will more or less doubled. I will need to pick up a lot of technical skills within the next 6 months, which I am reluctant to do so, as I'm trying to get out of IT, but which I am confident that I can do it, if I want to. More stress.
However, the plus sides: All these will look good on my resume. These will really make my resume stand out, as I have experience managing a team of engineers and administrating 200 servers all over AP for a well-known MNC. I'll be attending lots of (expensive) systems trainings and courses that will, again, value-add to me. If I can manage the team well, I'll have made a name for myself for being the 'Fixer', the person who can straighten/streamline any operation team.
So the decision for now is that I'll discuss it further on Monday with my Visa lady boss on her expectations and then decide if I can deliver what she wants. For now, the odds are 65-35 that I'll take up this position.
Stay tuned for part II....
The story goes....
This morning, I had a breakfast meeting with my Visa lady boss, Sophie. We were discussing my handover of the APAO Team (the 24/7 monitoring team). This team will be passed over to another Visa manager, SK, who once 'owned' the team before it came to my lady boss. She told me that they (she and my HP boss, Allan) have decided to 'promote' Jeff (the Server Ops Team Lead) to be Sophie's assistant, and promote another Server Ops member, Johnson, to be the next Team Lead. When I heard this, I was suprised. They had offered me the position the last time they talked to me about the assistant manager post. So I would have thought that they would at least considered me first before the others. But anyway, I wasn't very interested in that Team Lead position so I didnt comment anything on that to her.
Later in the afternoon, during our team meeting (team as in the Application Support Team, my Main team which I am the assistant Team Lead), my boss told the rest of the team abt the decisions. She asked us if we are okay with Allan (my HP boss) bringing in another HP colleague from the Desktop team to replace Jeffrey in the Server Ops team, and all immediately protested. The current Server Ops team comprises Jeff, Johnson and Hawk. Other than Jeff who is server-trained, both Johnson and Hawk was promoted from the Visa Desktop Team, so they are not properly server-trained per se. If all three of the Server Ops team is going to be NOT server-trained, then the workload will definitely flow to us, overloading the Application Support team, as there are more than 150 different servers (and increasing) to administrate and maintain all over Asia Pacific!!
After the team meeting, one of my OSPS colleague msn me asking me if I want the position of the Server Ops Team Lead, as in his opinion, I will make a better team lead than Johnson. I told him that it's Sophie and Allan's decision to make. Since they did not offer it to me, I will not go to them to ask/beg for it. Anyway, I am happy doing what I'm doing now. But I think he later msn Sophie about this and Sophie msn me. She said she 'forgot' to ask me if I'm interested in being the Team Lead for Server Ops. She thought that the previous time I rejected her assistant position, I also didn't want any 'Lead' role. I told her it's not a problem, I'm okay with her choice of selecting Johnson to take over Jeff. I can concentrate more on my current job scope.
Then we spent the next 40 mins trying to get each other see the other person's point. I told her I'm not server trained, so I won't value-add to the Server Ops team technically. She replied saying that it is not an issue as technical skills can always be picked up and she wants me to straighten up the Server Ops team, just like what I did to the APAO team. She wants me to do both the team lead job and my current job!! I responded that by doing so, she will not be fair to the Server Ops Team as I will not be able to concentrate fully on the team; instead of 1 person fully doing server-related stuff, I can only contribute 0.5 of my time to the Server Ops team. I told her several of my concerns: technical knowledge, seniority, current team moral and culture, resource and fairness. I told her that I need to know her expectation of the Team Lead before committing as I do not want to bite more than I can chew. Finally, she wants us to meet up on Monday to talk this through...
So that was what happened...
Now my thoughts:
When I heard that they are promoting Johnson to be the Team Lead, I was slightly annoyed. Because they (Allan and Sophie) did mention to me that they will promote me if either one of the Team Leads (Jeff and Edmund, who were keen to take up the assistant manager role) gets the job. I'm annoyed because that promise seemed to be made insincerely. 好像是在敷衍我。
Since they did not offer the position to me in the first place, I will not ask them for it. To me if they are sincere about their offer the last time, I shouldn't be the one in the 被动 state. If they really think that I'm suitable for the position, I should have been their first choice. I should have the power to decide, and not being made to look like I sought after the position after they have decided the candidate, which I didn't.
Frankly, with or without this position, I'm happy with my current workload and responsibility. Furthermore, I'm hoping my scholarship application will be successful and I can go for further studies either Q4 this year or Q1 next year. So I'm quite reluctant to take up any new responsibilities. And if the scholarship plan fall through, I've also put out feelers to get myself into a more permanent employment. But again, I am worried about turning my bosses down the 2nd time. What if all my plans did not materialise, then I will not be in the position to ask for more responsibilities or promotion in future, since I've turned down the opportunity twice.
If I were to take this position up, I can foresee that my laissez-faire approach to work will have to change and my after-office hours might not be mine anymore. I might face problem managing the 2 Server Ops guys and getting them to 服我. It'll take me a lot more effort to change the current culture and attitude of the Server Ops team. My Visa lady boss will have high expectation of me to perform, since I've delivered the goods once. My learning curve will be very steep and my workload will more or less doubled. I will need to pick up a lot of technical skills within the next 6 months, which I am reluctant to do so, as I'm trying to get out of IT, but which I am confident that I can do it, if I want to. More stress.
However, the plus sides: All these will look good on my resume. These will really make my resume stand out, as I have experience managing a team of engineers and administrating 200 servers all over AP for a well-known MNC. I'll be attending lots of (expensive) systems trainings and courses that will, again, value-add to me. If I can manage the team well, I'll have made a name for myself for being the 'Fixer', the person who can straighten/streamline any operation team.
So the decision for now is that I'll discuss it further on Monday with my Visa lady boss on her expectations and then decide if I can deliver what she wants. For now, the odds are 65-35 that I'll take up this position.
Stay tuned for part II....
posted by imm @ 9:16 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:22 PM,
Anonymous said…
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